THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release August 15, 1994
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT CRIME BILL EVENT
The Rose Garden
1:55 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much, Mark,
Janice, Steve, and Dewey, and to all the rest of you who are here.
We have just heard from the real American interests in the crime
bill.
Last week, the House of Representatives walked away from
Polly Klaas and Jody Sposato and James Darby, and all the law
enforcement officials in this country who have worked so very hard
for this crime bill. When you walk away from our police officers and
from our kids, from our hard-working citizens with their futures
before them, or our senior citizens who have given their lives to
make this a better country, and you do it on a procedural trick so
you can still go back home and pretend that you didn't vote against
the crime bill, and you would even have voted for it had it only come
to a vote, there's something wrong with the American system of
government.
And it finds its way into the lives of people that are
still around. Polly's sister, Annie, told me she's still afraid of
being kidnapped, so she's built an elaborate alarm system in her room
with ropes and bells. There's something wrong when James Darby and
his classmates who are still living were so afraid of violence that
they had to participate in a special program to help them cope with
it. And the worst part of their fears is that there's truth behind
them.
Yes, this is the greatest country in the world, and the
longest-lasting democracy in the world. And none of us would live
anywhere else for anything. But we have to face the fact that we
have the highest murder rate in the world and that our children are
more at risk here than they would be in most other countries and all
other advanced countries, because we have simply failed to act with
the discipline and determination necessary to preserve democracy's
most fundamental obligation -- the maintenance of law and order --
without which freedom and progress cannot proceed.
The crime bill makes three strikes and you're out the
law of the land, puts 100,000 police on the street, builds more
prisons to lock up serious offenders, takes handguns away from
juveniles and bans assault weapons, and provides investments and
prevention to give our kids a better start in live; deals more
sensibly with the terrible scourge of drugs that are responsible for
so many of the crimes we have. These are things which ought to be
done.
How can the House explain to Mark Klaas why the law that
might have saved his daughter's life had it been enacted years ago
couldn't come up for a vote? How could a politician go to a little
child like Meghan Sposato and explain that, well, they just couldn't
figure out a way to bring to a vote a law that would have taken the
deadly weapon that killed her mother out of the hands of a deranged
person? And how could a member of Congress explain to James Darby's
mother why they won't put police on the street who might have allowed
little James to complete his last walk home?
If Washington had acted six years ago, some of these
lives might have been saved. If Washington will act this week, a
whole lot of lives can still be saved.
Last Friday I met with some police officers in
Minnesota. I told them that they had never walked away from us and
that Washington should not walk away from them. Well, the parents of
this country should have the same pledge. And the children of this
country should have the same pledge. You heard Janice say that in
James Darby's wonderful letter to me, which I have read over and over
and over again since last Mother's Day -- he said, "I know you could
do something about this, and I'm asking you nicely to do it."
Well, my fellow Americans, we have asked the Congress
nicely long enough. There should be no more excuses, no more tricks,
no more delays -- and no more discussion about whether this bill is a
Democratic bill or a Republican bill or a Clinton bill. I don't know
when I will ever be able to get it across to people here that what we
do here is not about us. It is about the rest of America. So let
Congress here this: Pass the Darby-Klaas-Sposato crime bill and do
it now.
Thank you. (Applause.)
END2:02 P.M. EDT